The Tempest - Utah Shakespearean Festival

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The Outer Show and the Inner Truth
By Elaine Pilkington,
From Insights, 2007
One of Shakespeare’s last plays, The Tempest is a culmination of his life’s work with
familiar situations, common motifs, and echoing themes. Audiences are immediately
comfortable with The Tempest—the oft repeated relationships of ruler and subject, master
and servant, father and daughter, young lover and worthy lady; its use of the transforming
power of music, magic, and time; and its exploration of the nature of humanity and the
disparity between illusion and reality, between the outer show and inner truth. Despite its
familiarity, The Tempest is unique unto itself, a new story that also summarizes and perhaps
even transcends the old ones.
Central to the play is Prospero’s island. Like the woods outside of Athens in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream or the Forest of Arden in As You Like It, this uncharted island
is part of the green world, as Northrop Frye called that natural place where characters find
themselves and lose a few of their flaws. However, it is more than just a place removed
from the ordinary traffic of man. “[T]he isle is full of noises, / Sounds, and sweet airs, that
give delight and hurt not” (3.2.135–36; all references to the play are from The Riverside
Shakespeare, [Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974]). Originally peopled only by the
spirit Ariel, the monstrous Caliban, and all manner of supernatural entities, the island
providentially becomes the home of Prospero and Miranda.
As Duke of Milan, Prospero had been absorbed with the pursuit of knowledge, delegating
his brother Antonio to rule for him, but he was oblivious to his brother’s greed for
power and position. With the help of Alonzo, the King of Naples, Antonio seized the
dukedom and banished Prospero and Miranda to an almost certain death cast adrift in a
“rotten carcass of a butt, not rigg’d, / Nor tackle, sail, nor mast” (1.2.146–47). Shipwrecked
on the island, Prospero continues his study, but his focus is broadened in his twelve-year
exile. Separated from Milan, he creates a new kingdom over which to reign. His rule is
benign. He teaches Caliban, attempts to civilize him, and punishes him only because he
must. He cannot allow him to rape Miranda or destroy the order of the island. Ariel and
the other spirits of the island are also his subjects. They are not mistreated and are eventually
freed. Prospero serves his apprenticeship and learns how to rule.
His talents are demonstrated when his brother and the Neapolitans are shipwrecked in
a storm on his island kingdom. With Ariel to do his bidding and other spirits to perform
as commanded, Prospero carefully orchestrates the tempest, the dispersing of the characters,
and what they are allowed to see and do. His art is perfected. Never are they harmed, never
are they in danger. Any discomfort, either physical or emotional, is temporary, occurring
only to lead them to the possibility of a positive transformation.
Prospero’s exile on the island has also taught him to be a father. Here he has learned to
care for another and has integrated human interaction into his character. Miranda remembers
a time when more than four or five ladies waited upon her. On the island Prospero is
exclusively in charge of her upbringing. With his loving guidance, Miranda has become a
consummate princess—in speech, in bearing, in compassion. Prospero tells her that as her
schoolmaster he made her “more profit / Than other princess’ can, that have more time /
For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful” (1.2.172–74). According to Caliban, Prospero
calls Miranda “a nonpareil” (3.2.100). Ferdinand immediately falls in love with her and
says to her, “[Y]ou, / So perfect and so peerless, are created / of every creature’s best!”
(3.1.46–48). As a child, her gentle, compassionate nature prompted her to teach Caliban
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